Lu Zhou thought that this majestic hourglass-shaped building would have many floors. However, he found out that a large amount of space was wasted.
The floors inside the building had sky-high ceilings. The sense of vertical space gave the entire hall a majestic and solemn look.
It was almost like this wasn’t a conference room, but instead a court hall.
The abnormally tall conference table gave off a similar vibe.
The conference table had a horseshoe shape, wrapping around the room.
Sitting at the bottom seats were ordinary mbers of the parliant. Sitting at the higher seats were people of higher status, such as departnt ministers, president of parliant, and even the ruler of the Empire: the consul.
What a strange civilization.
Even though this was obviously a capitalistic society, the governnt/political structure did not seem efficient at all. Rather, it seed to be deeply embedded in religion.
Lu Zhou speculated that this might be related to the Calan’s appreciation of philosophy and aesthetics.
Unfortunately, Lu Zhou was not a social scientist, so he focused his attention on more important things...
The eting soon began.
Lu Zhou was standing on the side of the hall with Captain Ince, blending in with two other guards. Lu Zhou waited quietly for five minutes, staring intently at the conference table. Finally, the consul sitting at the center of the conference table looked at Professor Lane and spoke calmly.
“You’re Professor Lane?”
Professor Lane nodded and spoke politely.
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“There’s been a rumor circulating in the Ring world, about sothing nad the ‘Oracle’. According to the intelligence departnt’s investigation, all sources lead to you.”
The powerful Calanian consul continued to speak in a powerful manner, “I want to know why you’re causing such trouble to the Empire.
“The parliant and the people of the Empire need an explanation.”
Faced with the oppressive gazes from the parliant, Professor Lane kept his cool and spoke calmly.
“Your Honor, I must correct your statent.
“First of all, the Oracle is not a rumor. Our civilization is indeed facing an unprecedented crisis. Secondly, as a scholar, I am responsible for my words. What I say is true.”
There was a commotion in the conference hall.
Most of the legislators at the lower positions of power looked at each other and whispered to one another, even occasionally laughing from ti to ti.
Crisis?
If this were three centuries ago, this word would have been a lot more impactful. Back then, the world was full of doors.
But ever since the Ring world was completed, the Empire had been shining in prosperity. Judging by the current population growth rate, they could maintain this prosperity for centuries.
They were in no danger of any kind of crisis.
Therefore, it was quite ridiculous to even ntion the possibility of one.
The consul had a playful smile on his face. He had a look of contempt and ridicule in his eyes as he spoke.
“Then tell , Professor Lane, what exactly is the crisis? Is it your theory on aliens?”
“No.”
Professor Lane frowned at the consul and began explaining his statent.
“I’m not sure if the crisis cos from them, but it is related to them.”
There was an even bigger commotion around the conference table.
The scholar looked around the conference table and spoke.
“One thing I want to say is that we are not alone in the universe. Even if there are no traces of life 500 light-years, or even 50,000 light-years away, that doesn’t an there’s no external life at all. It is extrely unlikely that we are the only sentient beings in this universe.”
The consul looked at Professor Lane and spoke.
“That theory was popular many years ago, and I’m not interested in discussing it with you here. Even if they do exist, the sheer distance makes it so that we will never interact with them. So why does it matter to us?”
The Calans wasn’t a civilization that wanted to conquer the world.
Rather than expanding the territory of the Empire, they were more motivated on improving the peace and cohesion of their people. This was why they were able to create such a majestic giant engineering structure project that was the Ring world.
Aliens?
Even though in the early space age they wanted to make contact with an extraterrestrial species, that idea was abandoned in the early ages of the space colonization era.
Professor Lane nodded and spoke to the consul.
“Under ideal circumstances, staying in isolation is a wise choice. We don’t need to worry about species that are tens of thousands of light-years away... However, the problem isn’t that they have contacted us, but rather we have contacted them.”
The commotion in the room suddenly disappeared.
It was like a gun had just gone off.
A trace of astonishnt had appeared in the consul’s eyes. The consul looked at Professor Lane and spoke.
“Where is the evidence!”
“I have published my findings in a paper 127 days ago, but that paper is precisely why my life is in danger... If it weren’t for Captain Ince and his team, I would have been captured by the attackers.”
Captain Ince, who was standing in the side of the conference room, nodded and spoke politely.
“Our pleasure, Professor Lane, your rights are protected by the state. Whether the parliant finds you guilty or not, you still have your rights.”
Professor Lane nodded as a show of gratitude.
He looked around the conference table and spoke.
“In order for us to reach an understanding, I will present my research again.”
He opened his suitcase and took out a thumb-sized prism from it.
When he gently pressed on the prism, the prism began to emit a blue light. Suddenly, a projected image appeared in the air.
It’s a holographic projection?
Lu Zhou was intrigued.
Is this a kind of naked eye holography, with a touchscreen interface?
How is that possible?
He felt like he was a kid from the suburbs that had just entered a city.
Other than Lu Zhou, everyone in the council was not surprised by what they saw. They quietly looked at the holographic screen and waited for Professor Lane to continue.
“... We all know that there is sothing that exists between black holes and neutron stars, which we know as quark stars. It is composed of up, down, and strange quarks. These stars are only the size of a pea, but they weigh hundreds of millions of tons.”
Professor Lane gestured with his hand and spoke.
“The research on quark stars has always been at the frontier of physics. It teaches us how to extract the materials we need from a black hole. A while ago, we were fortunate enough to discover and analyze a quark star that is 23,000 light-years away...
“And its size is... around the size of this pen.”
When Lu Zhou heard this, he was stunned.
Quark stars!
That actually exists?!
Physicists on Earth thought that “quark stars” was a type of fictional exotic star that did not exist...
The theory of its existence could be traced back to the conjecture that Witten put forward in the 1980s, in which he said “a large mass of strange quarks can form a ground state of a strong acting system”. There had been speculations regarding its existence during the early transition phases of the universe, caused by supernova explosions and neutron star collisions etc.
However, the conditions for the existence of a quark star was harsh. Theoretically, if it made contact with any matter, it would instantly explode, releasing terrifying amounts of energy.
Therefore, neither astrophysicists nor particle physicists had found evidence for its existence.
The only speculation so far was that the extrely high-energy cosmic rays with particle energies higher than 10^19eV might co from quark stars. However, just like neutrinos, it was difficult to capture these cosmic rays.
But Professor Lane confidently claid that there was a quark star in the universe that was large enough to be seen with a naked eye.
If all of this was real, the entire physics community would go crazy...
Lu Zhou couldn’t help but get excited.
However, his excitent didn’t last long.
Because he knew that even if he knew the existence of this exotic star, there was no way to prove it to others.
It wasn’t like he could use this “Void mory” as evidence.
He didn’t even know where the Calanians were located, nor if they still existed or not.
Lu Zhou began to feel a little down.
If only I can find the coordinates of the quark star or obtain the technology to find one.
I don’t think that information is inside the Void mory.
It’s so close in front of , yet so far...
“... Gentlen, this is ground-breaking. A quark star that is large enough to be seen by the naked eye!”
“What’s the use?” a mber of parliant said. He looked at the excited Professor Lane and continued, “Even the most advanced research ship in the Empire can’t fly 230,000 light-years away.”
The mber of parliant spoke quite loudly.
Professor Lane looked at the mber of parliant and spoke.
“Any theory is useless upon its creation... If we don’t understand it, there’s no way to make it useful.
“Basically, I am responsible for researching the quark star. At first, we thought it was stationary, but then we analyzed the gravitational wave and found an interesting pattern... This ans that the quark star is not technically in motion. However, it is heading toward the center of the galaxy through a light bridge!”
The consul coughed and spoke in a serious manner.
“This is the Empire council, we’re not interested in theoretical physics.”
“... The main point is that the discovery changed everything we know,” Professor Lane said in a serious manner. “This quark star was man-made.
“Another civilization created it.
“The civilization that created it is probably far more advanced than us.”
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